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Dining out can be a treat for your taste buds but a disaster for your weight loss program. It doesn’t have to be if you choose your restaurant carefully.

Chinese, Japanese, and Thai restaurants can help you lose weight. Most oriental cuisines rely on vegetables and rice as the major ingredients in their dishes. Meat is treated as a condiment rather than a main course. This is great news for people on a weight loss program. Meat is calorie dense and has a lot fat. Vegetables are calorie poor and, for the most part, have very little fat. Stay away from deep fried dishes like tempura. Stir fried dishes are fine, the high heat means the vegetables don’t stay in the hot oil long enough to absorb it. Ask for steamed rice rather than fried rice. Steamed rice will help satisfy you and it extends the flavor of the main dish because it absorbs the sauces.

Italian restaurants can be a challenge if you can’t stay away from the cream sauces and cheese but a blessing if you can. Think several courses spread out over an hour or so. Antipasto is a great way to start your meal. Concentrate on the veggies and just have a taste of the cheese or meats. Order minestrone soup as your starter. Share a plate of pasta with your dining buddy. Angel hair pasta with extra virgin olive oil, chopped fresh tomatoes, minced garlic, and fresh basil is just as delicious as Fettuccini Alfredo and a lot better for you.

Feel like something French? Then think Bistro rather than haute cuisine. Roasted chicken garnished with rosemary and lemon, complimented with fresh asparagus is a much better choice than steak with Béarnaise sauce. Fresh and simple is the mainstay of Bistro cooking rather than creamy and complicated.

American steak houses rely on steaks as their mainstay, no surprise there. If you feel you have to order steak, have filet mignon, it’s one of the leanest cuts of beef. Make sure it’s grilled or broiled with no sauce. Filet is usually served in small portions. Order the petite cut if they have it. Eat slowly and you’ll be as satisfied as if you’d eaten the mega portion of prime rib. Most steak houses emphasize their seafood as much as their beef. Seafood is a better choice for your diet than beef. Choose fresh vegetables for your sides rather than potato, or creamed spinach.

Whatever the restaurant you can maintain your weight loss program if you carefully choose your entrée and how it’s prepared.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading.

–Nigel

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Are you trying to lose weight but feel like you’re getting nowhere really fast? Do you feel like it’s too hard to lose weight? Do you find it hard to add weight loss strategies to your life? Do you have more weight gaining habit than weight loss habits?

That’s ok. Don’t be upset about it. The truth is that many people have a lot of bad weight loss habits and those that are able to overcome them do so with practice, perseverance, and time.

You probably have a lot of bad weight loss habits and that’s natural because you’ve had years and years to practice those bad habits and hone them to perfection, so don’t expect to be able to give them all up overnight.

No, the best way to overcome them is with time. Time will be the one weapon that those bad habits won’t be able to defeat. Give yourself time to establish new, good habits that will actually help you to lose weight. Spend as much time as you need establishing one good habit, then move on to the next one.

You need to take it one bad habit at a time. Along with not giving themselves enough time to break old habits and form new ones, a lot of people also try to change all of their bad habits at the same time and that’s simply impossible to do. Like I said before, you’ve spent years practicing those bad habits and they’re not going away without a fight. Start with one. Say it’s sitting at your computer checking your email fifteen times a day. That’s a lot of time to be sitting at your computer being completely inactive. Instead of doing that, choose specific times of the day that you’ll sit down and check your email that way you can be more productive in between your scheduled email times.

Once you see the effects of giving yourself the time that you need to overcome one bad habit at a time, it makes it so much easier to persevere until you’re able to break more and more bad weight loss habits. Over time, you’ll establish a lifestyle that allows you to reap the benefits of good weight loss habits and all of the bad habits that you had that were keeping you overweight will be a distant memory. Now is the time to start taking it one bad weight loss habit at a time.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading.

–Nigel

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If you’re like me and like to stay up late at night, you’ve probably seen the thousands of weight loss commercials that are aired at night. Late night cable TV viewing is all about selling some type of weight loss plan or machine and breaking it up into three easy payments for you.

Have you ever bought any of it? Will you ever buy any of it? If you haven’t, then you probably won’t. If you have, then you probably feel like you were scammed by what you bought because you didn’t get the results you were promised.

I know your frustration and irritation. When you’re trying to find exercises that are easy to do and will help you lose weight, sometimes you try to find shortcuts along the way and you may even be desperate for a solution.

Instead of wasting your time and money on the latest fad exercise plan or machine, let’s try some old tried and true exercises that have been around for years and have been proven to be effective.

Walking and running have been weight loss champs for decades. A lot of people have used these exercises with great success. They’re great exercises because they involve almost all of the body in the exercise and cause most of your large muscle areas to burn fat.

Swimming has been another favorite for years. It’s a very low impact exercise that’s easy on the joints and involves most of the body as well. Most people that use swimming as a weight loss exercise find that they can swim longer than they can run or walk and enjoy the added benefit of being to lose more weight by swimming.

Even though those are great exercises to use and add to your daily routine, I want you to think of this first: What physical activities do you really enjoy doing on a daily basis? It’s a really simple question when you think about it and it can have far reaching effects on how you lose weight.

What I really want you to identify are the exercises that you are already doing and see if there’s any way to do them more frequently. For example, do you like to golf? A lot of folks do. Well, next time you go golfing, don’t rent a cart to drive you around the eighteen holes. Walk the entire course. It’s the best of both worlds!

Just keep this in mind: The ultimate exercises for you are the exercises that you enjoy doing and because you like to do them, you’ll want to do them more.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading.

–Nigel

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I’ve been going through some emails over the last few days I’ve noticed that many people are still stuck doing long duration, low-intensity cardiovascular exercise — yikes!

Here’s the deal: if you’re looking to achieve maximal benefit from the time you put into your workouts, long duration “slow-go” cardio is NOT the way to go, and for many reasons.

Here are my top 5:

1. Minimal calories burned — 45 minutes on the treadmill may burn a whopping 300 calories if you’re lucky, the equivalent of ONE TENTH of a pound of fat. Exercise ten hours a week and you might just lose a pound!

Which brings me to my next point:

2. Way too much time involved — I don’t know about you, but I don’t have hours and hours of my time to pour into working out each week. In fact, very rarely do I ever a couple hours of exercise weekly, and you know what? That’s ALL you need. In fact, research has shown that anything more than 90 mins a week may be detrimental!

Beyond that, slow-go cardio is:

3. BORING as heck — Sitting on an exercise bike staring at the wall in front of me for 45-60 minutes? No thanks.

But perhaps even worse is the fact that slow-go cardio provides:

4. No prolonged metabolic benefit — Did you know that with higher intensity exercise it is possible to continue to burn calories for up to 48 hours post workout? It’s true. But you know what else is true? Long duration, low intensity cardio provides virtually NO prolonged elevation in metabolism. In fact, with slow-go cardio, metabolism returns to baseline almost IMMEDIATELY following the exercise session.

And finally, the reason that trumps all the others:

5. Minimal fat loss — Minimal calories burned during the session and virtually no additional calories burned afterward = minimal, if any fat loss results. And let’s be honest, the only reason anyone is doing cardio is for the “result”.

So if slow-go cardio isn’t a great solution, what is?

Both interval training and bodyweight circuit training are great alternatives for weight loss and fat burning. Plus, with bodyweight exercises, you can sculpt your lower and upper body, and your abs!

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading.

–Nigel

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You know, when you’re trying to lose weight, starving yourself is not the best option available, and if you’re like me, you like to snack on food during the course of the day. I like to snack all day long. Of course, that could be part of the reason why I’m now trying to lose weight.

So I went on a search to find out what are the best snacks to eat when you’re trying to lose weight and I’ve made a list of them that I’m going to share with you right now. Here’s what I found:

Snack #1 – Canned tuna fish or even canned salmon. It’s a snack in a can and it has very few calories and is very high in protein. You can even spruce it up a bit with some low fat mayo or salad dressing for some extra flavor or eat right from your can.

Snack #2 – Cottage cheese. A lot of dieters like cottage cheese as a breakfast food, but it also makes a great snack as well.

Snack #3 – Peanut butter. Peanut butter is a healthy, filling snack that can make you feel full for several hours. A lot of dieters spread some peanut butter on their favorite light bread and find that to be a very satisfying snack.

Snack #4 – Fat-free plain yogurt. Not only is yogurt a great snack by itself, but it can also be a great alternative to mayo in some dishes, especially salads that call for a lot of mayo. Give yogurt a try for your next salad and taste the difference.

Snack #5 – Energy bars. Energy bars are a great way to have a controlled amount of fats and calories as well as fix your sweet tooth at the same time. For a lot of dieters, this is the only time they can get their chocolate fix and not feel guilty about it!

Snack #6 – Celery. Yes, celery! Anyone that snack on celery use more calories to eat celery than what celery actually contains! Isn’t that cool? I love to dip some celery into peanut butter or even low fat dressing and guiltlessly snack away to my heart’s content.

Snack #7 – Carrots. Especially baby carrots! Carrots are very low in calories and are another great source for fiber as well. I really like to dip them in some low fat ranch dressing and snack away!

Snack #8 – Dried fruit. I like to grab a bag of dried fruit and snack on that as a mid morning snack or even an afternoon snack. And with a variety bag, there’s always something different to snack on!

Snack #9 – Fat-free Cool Whip. I love this snack! It’s a great way to basically replace ice cream in your life and still get your ice cream fix in a different way! I especially like to mix it up with some fresh or frozen fruit because both fat-free Cool Whip and fruit are low in calories. One of my favorite ways to satisfy my sweet tooth!

And last but not least…

Snack #10 – Fruit, canned or fresh! One of my favorite fruit snacks is canned pineapple chunks. I like to put in the fridge for several hours or overnight and open it up and snack right from the can. You can do this with any of your favorite canned fruits or fruit medleys.

There you go, folks! Ten tasty, satisfying ideas for snack foods that will help you lose weight. All that you have to do is head to the grocery store, drop them in the basket and bring them home to enjoy!

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading.

–Nigel

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Prepared foods are your friend. It seems silly to pay three to four times as much for a bag of cleaned prepared salad as for a head of lettuce. But it can be a boost to your diet program.

If you have to take the head of lettuce apart, wash, dry and tear into bite size pieces, you might be tempted just to skip the whole thing and throw a frozen pizza in the oven instead. Bagged ready to eat salads are a boon to weight watchers. But don’t stop there. Lots of fresh produce comes ready to eat or cook.

Besides salad, and carrot and celery sticks, you can buy ready to go cabbage slaw mixes, crudites, peeled and sliced fresh fruit, veggies ready to steam or saute, and baby vegetables. Next time you’re in the produce aisle take a few minutes to see what’s available.

In the deli section there is a wide variety of freshly prepared individual entree salads for your selection. You can choose Southwest Chicken, Cobb, or seafood, to name just a few. The salads come with the dressing in a separate container so the lettuce remains fresh and you control how much dressing to use. The salads are portion controlled, so when you’re finished there isn’t anything to tempt you into ‘just one more bite.’

Of course stay away from the prepared salads which are high fat. or made with mayonnaise, like potato, or macaroni. Avoid smoked deli meats. Stick with roasted meats like chicken or turkey, and low fat cheeses.

Snack packs of fresh fruits with yogurt, crunchy veggies with dip, even hard boiled eggs can round out your snack menu. All ready to go and to get you going.

The frozen foods case contain well known diet brand names but also have the grocer’s house brand for those on a weight program. The entrees are very similar in taste and nutritional benefits but the house brand is usually less expensive. Use the entree for lunch as well as dinner. Most offices have a refrigerator and a microwave.

Stick with individual bags and containers when you’re in the snack and cookie aisle. Look for baked low fat crackers and cookies.

Use prepared foods to keep your weight loss program on track. Don’t let a busy schedule be an excuse. Grocery shop for three or four days at a time, so you have the foods you want on hand when you need them.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading.

–Nigel

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How can you be addicted to a substance you have to consume to stay alive? Is it possible to be addicted to food? Researchers say yes.

When scanning the brain of a food addict thinking about food, the scan shows changes nearly identical with the brain changes of a drug addict or alcoholic thinking about drinking or drugs. Most of the time the food being contemplated by the food addict is rich and calorie dense, such as pizza, chocolate cake and ice cream, or pasta with cream sauce.

Another similarity is that food addicts like drug addicts, and alcoholics, have fewer receptors for dopamine, the feel good hormone. It could be that in order to feel good, food addicts have to eat more in order to reach the same state as normal people.

Over eating leads to the brain over emphasizing the sensation and pleasure of eating by decreasing the awareness of other body parts, than the mouth. Food addicts often go through similar withdrawal symptoms like drug addicts. These symptoms include anger, depression, irritability and moodiness.

Food addiction can be controlled. Even if you’re not addicted to food the tips below can help you lose weight.

Keep a journal. Writing down what you eat and how you feel when you eat can help you pinpoint danger areas. Seeing what you’ve eaten in a 24 hour period brings home just how much of your life is controlled by food.

Know your triggers and avoid them. Certain foods are triggers to out of control eating. If you know what they are you can avoid them. Triggers can also include events, such as holidays, and people. If you know someone irritates you and your reaction is to eat, avoid that person if possible.

Focus on the food. It sounds counter productive to emphasize food when that’s all you can think about. The idea is to focus on foods that you sincerely enjoy, not just on filling up your stomach with whatever is at hand. Food addicts in some ways have it rougher than other addicts, they can’t just give up food.

Slow down when you eat. Use small plates. Put your fork down between bites. Have multiple courses rather than everything on the table or on your plate at once. Drink water between bites. Take at least 30 minutes to eat your meals.

Join a support group. People who are facing the same challenges as you are can provide the positive support you need. Knowing you’re not alone can boost your morale.

Don’t give up. Your first efforts at controlling food consumption might not be successful, but that doesn’t mean all your efforts will fail. See the positive progress you’ve made rather than the back sliding.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading.

–Nigel

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If you are overweight, people will tell you to do abdominal exercises for obese people. That is so easy to say but have they ever tried to exercise while being massively overweight. Putting the dangers to your health aside, let’s consider the logistics.

Swimming is often recommended for obese people but who wants to go to a public pool wearing a bathing costume when they are so fat? Most of us want to cover ourselves up from head to toe, not show the world. Ok so for those that have a private pool in their home or garden, that’s fine but for the rest of us Swimming isn’t something we exactly look forward to.

Next our slim friends will tell us to go to the gym. Right, as if being surrounded by mirrors would be our idea of a good time? Not to mention the fact that gyms are full of skinny people or bodybuilders, neither category is particularly sensitive towards those of us struggling with our weight.

But even if we are brave enough to go to the gym, we then have the problem with the machines. How many gym machines do you know fit fat people? It’s embarrassing enough to get stuck in an airplane seat but on a weight bench?

Ok so we can avoid the machines but still work out. But how? Getting down on the ground to do some of the floor exercises is a huge task. Trying to balance when your center of gravity is all over the place isn’t easy. Add to that the fact that most obese people suffer from knee and other joint pain and perhaps you can see why some exercises are just beyond us.

So what can someone who is morbidly obese do? One option is to hire a personal trainer to come to your home and develop a suitable workout for you. Then when you gain confidence and tone up a little, you can venture down to the gym.

Not everyone can afford a personal trainer though so for those that can’t, why not invest in an exercise ball. These simple products will help to develop your balance and build abdominal strength. You can even exercise while watching TV. Don’t believe me?

Try sitting on a ball for a while and you will feel your muscles working. Just make sure you buy the right ball for your weight and height. Abdominal exercises are difficult for lots of people not just those that are obese and these exercise balls help to build up strength as well as toning up these muscles. Everyone benefits from using them and they are quite fun.

Another option is to buy an exercise bike suitable for seriously overweight people. Take it slowly though and follow the advice of your doctors as you don’t want to strain your heart in your bid to get healthy. Try these tips and soon you could be doing abdominal exercise!

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading –Nigel.

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If you are like many people, you wish that you could lose a little weight, but can’t seem to wrap your brain around the fact that you’re going to have to change the way you eat. Congratulations, you are normal. Voluntarily giving up fatty foods that once were a staple of your diet is a major decision that most people are not willing or able to make. Something you may not realize is that you don’t have to sacrifice good taste to the god of weight loss.

Oatmeal is a wonderful food for breakfasts. It is high in fiber, low in calories, and is very filling. You can put a variety of flavorings on the oatmeal from butter to honey, as long as it is in moderation. Overdoing anything will be bad for you.

Lettuce and other leafy greens are a wonderful source of fiber and other essential nutrients. Stay away from iceberg lettuce, though, as it has almost no nutritional value. Green leaf, red leaf, and romaine lettuce are good options as well as spinach, kale and Swiss chard for iron sources.

You don’t have to give up many of your favorite foods if you cook them using olive oil or natural nut oils and reduce your portion sizes. Using non saturated fats can help reduce cravings for other fatty foods, as well as adding a different flavor to an already favorite dish.

Beans provide lots of fiber, protein, and help to stabilize blood sugar levels. Many vegetarians use beans as a replacement for meat. You can even mix beans and lean ground beef to make heart healthy and fat conscious taco or burrito filling.

Mixing these healthy foods with moderate amounts of your favorites will give you a healthy and enjoyable diet that yields results. You can even go a step further and use natural flavorings and spices to add zest to your food instead of pre packaged seasoning.

Take a look at your favorite taco seasoning, for instance, and read the list of ingredients. Most of what is there that is unpronounceable or doesn’t grow on its own is mainly there as a preservative. If you just use the spices that are in it, you can make it better and healthier. The extra effort may even make cooking enjoyable as you craft and perfect your recipes.

Lets face it! Going and staying on a weight loss diet is hard work; any way you look at it. But you don’t have to pound (pun intended) yourself into the ground with your diet. Simply by spicing up your “diet power foods”, with all natural spices, and reducing your portion sizes of your favorite foods, will take some of the hard work out of dieting.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading –Nigel.

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Once in a while I workout at an old school gym.

Some workouts are pointless. But to my surprise, I still see men and women doing useless, ineffective exercises while they try to burn off their belly fat, lose inches from their waists, and tone their muscles.

All you need are the basics. Be consistent, stick with what is proven to work, and don’t waste time in the gym. An exercise session should take much less than an hour to finish. And you only have to exercise hard 3 days per week, not 6 or 7.

Don’t use these exercises, they aren’t worth it…

1) Broomstick Twists

You know this classic move, put the broomstick across your shoulders and rotate side to side, with the hopes it will whittle your waist down inch by inch.

But to what should be no one’s surprise, this doesn’t work. The broomstick exercise will not help you. If you really want to lose belly fat, you have to do a lot more than that.

A better option: Hard cardio, and preferably interval training, is the best way to lose stomach fat.

2) Triceps Exercises

If you’re a competitive bodybuilder, than triceps and biceps exercises are fine to have in your program. But if you are a busy man or woman that needs more results in less time, doing any type of isolation exercise (such as triceps kickbacks) is a waste of your precious time.

A better option: Any type of pushup. From kneeling pushups to close-grip pushups (where your hands are about shoulder-width apart), you’ll get so much more benefit to the rest of your body and to your fat burning, body- sculpting program if you choose pushups over triceps exercises.

3) Exercises Standing on a Ball or Other Gadget

Lots of trainers are asking their clients to perform traditional exercises while standing on balls, half-balls, and inflatable disks, but I know this is not only a waste of time, but also dangerous! You better not crash from standing on the ball. Could you imagine trying to rationalize that in court?

Regardless, you will get stronger and even improve your balance more by training traditional exercises standing on the floor. Strength is the key to any gains in balance, fat loss, and muscle mass. By doing exercises on a wobbly surface, you reduce the strength gains and therefore all the rest of the benefits.

I know you will get great results if you use total body exercises.

The best fat loss program is the Craig Ballantyne Turbulence Training fat loss system. His fat burning exercises help you lose weight in short workouts.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Craig_Ballantyne

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll get back to you.

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